DNA (A Kuroshitsuji fanfiction)
by FeelingMysterious
Summary: Ciel was born in a laboratory, along with dozens of other children. When his creators try to dispose of him as "defective," Ciel uses the last of his strength to call on a demon. Scarred and filled with hatred for the ones who created and then discarded him, the child forms a contract: for revenge. (Takes place in the far future of the anime.)
1. Chapter 1

**DNA**

**A Kuroshitsuji fanfiction**

1

I had no name for the first four years of my life. From the time I awoke in the culture tank, until the time I was introduced to others like myself, I was called only by a number, like a product off the assembly line. When a last I stood in a row of other, rather confused, children, our makers likewise stood in front of us, observing the group with dispassionate gazes.

"You have spent the last four years learning basic motor and language skills," announced one, his black shoes clicking in the floor as he paced back and forth in front of us. "Now, at the physical age of seven, you will spend the next few years learning how to interact with others. You will be expected to be able to maintain conversation, perform in a group environment, and make _friends_ with one another." These last words left his lips with a slightly mocking smile, and I felt myself shiver. "To that end," the man continued, "you will be given names. Use these names to address each other from now on."

A second scientist began to walk down the line, naming us as he went. "A-52, Roger. A-53, Alois. A-54…" I tuned him out as a stared around the round, white room. It was always white in this place; white walls, white coats, in the mirror I saw a white face in a white dressing-gown. "A-60." I blinked as the man stopped in front of me. He gave a wide, narrow grin, eyes hidden behind heavy silver bangs. "Ciel."

We had a play-song for our makers. It rang out quietly whenever a child was scolded or, occasionally, taken from the group. We were still too young, too sheltered to know what fear was, but we felt a tight excitement, the feeling of children who knew they mustn't be caught, whenever we hummed the little tune.

_"__Hurry up and hide, the doctor's coming,_

_If he sees you sick, he'll pull you out._

_How many will be left after he gets here?_

_1, 2, 3, 4…"_

It never went past four, as though no one wanted to know our actual number.

Though I sang with the rest of them, in my soft, tuneless voice, I rarely joined in their games. There was something that seemed off about their play in the blank, white space where we lived. It was too featureless, somehow. Too false. And so I would sit in a corner with one of the few books in our play-area, reading them over and over, until I could probably recite most of them word-for-word.

A year after we were named, one of our caretakers pulled me aside. "You need to try harder to get along with your friends," he told me.

As I wandered back towards the rest of the children, I heard his companion murmur, _"He doesn't fit the requirements. Why not pull him out now?"_

_"__His coding is perfect,"_ the first man replied softly. _"Give him some time."_

That night, I lay under the white sheets and listened to the breathing of the children around. _Coding._ What was coding? Why was it perfect? I raised a hand to my chest, feeling the pulse and ebb of my heart. I pictured myself: thin, pale, dark hair and large, blue eyes.

What was, "perfect?"

The hand lowered, and I turned my head to look down the row of sleeping children. There were seventy of us on that first day. Silently I counted, and I felt a creeping feeling of dread.

Forty-five.


	2. Chapter 2

2

**_Two Years Later_**

"Ciel."

I glanced up from my book and frowned. "What is it, Alois?"

The blonde grinned. "Come play with us." He beckoned me towards the group of his friends, happily tossing a ball back and forth. I looked at their wide, identical smiles and shook my head.

"You go ahead."

Alois frowned and started to protest my continued lack of social interaction, but the smooth voice of one of our caretakers interrupted him. "Ciel, might you come with me?"

I peered through my bangs at him, taking in the smile that was faker even than those of my playmates. I set the book aside, feeling the smooth cover leave my fingers with something like regret. "Alright."

Behind me as we left the playroom, I heard the other children start to sing.

"Ciel," the scientist began as we wandered down the whitewashed hallway, "you don't seem to enjoy playing with your friends. Why is that?"

I had learned to lie over the years. _Yes, I was happy. Yes, my life was wonderful. Of course I trusted the doctors._ But for some reason, just then, I didn't lie, though I wished for the rest of my life that I had.

"It doesn't suit me," I said.

The doctor paused. "I see." He sounded disappointed. "Well Ciel, you children are supposed to play. You need to be happy, and lovable. Do you understand?"

"No," I said, because I didn't.

He frowned and ushered me into the lab. It was the same room I went to every week for my checkup, and I sat obediently while he readied the needle for the blood sample. But when I felt the pinch in my arm I looked down, and saw blue liquid going in, not red coming out.

The last thing I thought of before falling into nothingness was this morning's head count.

_Twenty-three._

_It's a shame. This batch seemed perfect, at first._

_Nothing's perfect on the first couple of tries. But we still have almost twenty-five that can be sent through the final stage before shipping next month._

_And these ones?_

A grim chuckle. _Testing. Orders from the higher-ups. We're to try to see if we can figure out why they were defective, so they can fix it next time around._

Even as I slipped out of my darkness, some primal survival instinct led me to keep my eyes closed, and my body still, like a small creature trapped by a predator. And so I heard what happened next, even though I didn't see it.

There was the creak of metal hinges, and a piteous cry of alarm. "Make sure to strap him down firmly," one of the men said.

"Anesthesia?" asked the other.

There was a harsh laugh. "There's not enough in the world for what we're doing. Why do you think we have the earplugs?" There was a pause, and then the child began to scream.

It was a raw, savage sound that set my very soul to burning. Sawing through flesh and bone like the tools I _knew_ they wielded, piercing my ears like white-hot needles. It went on and on, interspersed with the occasional wet gurgle or moan. Around me, I heard others begin to scream and cry, sounds of terror evoked by our comrade's pain. Finally the child let out one last shriek, a cry that tore what was let of my soul to shreds. And then, though my eyes were still closed, my world of white was stained with red.


	3. Chapter 3

3

We were animals, _less_ than animals, already dead in the eyes of our makers. We had failed to please, and so were worthless. Dead and worthless. We were the only ones to hear each others' screams, because the doctors invariably blocked out and ignored the cries.

I counted every day. It had evolved from habit into obsession. They were taking us in the order we were brought in. Every day I counted how many of us were left, and how many until was my turn.

Twenty-two when I arrived.

Today: seventeen.

I recognized the boy who was led away from the play-group a few days before me. staring out from his cage with terrified eyes. When he died, I'd know that I was next.

Our "caretakers" treated us with less respect than lab rats, tending us with less care than pigs. If we refused to eat, they force-fed us. If we tried to enrage them into killing us, we were drugged. It seemed that even broken dolls could not be cast away, until we fulfilled our purpose.

I came to despise everything about these people. Their heartless cruelty, the methodic way they had destroyed our lives, and now destroyed our bodies. Even myself- no… especially myself. I cursed my own existence, brought into being by people who only planned to use me until there was nothing left save for a shattered shell with nothing but a hollow hatred inside.

()()()

When I woke to find my predecessor gone from his cage, I felt only grimly resigned. I knew what I looked like, just like the others around me emaciated, filthy, and hollow-eyed, though lacking the out-of-focus gaze of the children who had been drugged. I willingly came out of the cage when the door was opened, and lay obediently down on the table.

But as they lay the icy tip of the scalpel against my skin, I felt terror at last. _Who did this to us?_ Most of the others were curled in their cages, hands over their ears, but some were watching with morbid interest, as though imagining what their own deaths would feel like.

_Who did this?_ I wondered again, feeling rage rising as the man traced the incision he would be making. _Who turned us into this? I have to know…_

"Ready?" murmured one doctor.

_I need to know._

His partner nodded.

_Somebody…_

The earplugs were produced, ensuring that they wouldn't hear my screams.

_Somebody-!_

**_Help me._**

I didn't hear myself scream, nor did I feel any pain. It was cold, and dark. **_"Such a tiny master,"_** someone murmured as my heart fell silent. I felt an immense presence, as though some great creature held me in the shadow of its wings. This creature spoke to me of heaven, and the grace I would cast aside in exchange for its help.

I laughed, a sound raw and strange in my throat, echoing in this nonexistent space. _"Would you be here if I believed in God?"_ I whispered.

It warned me of hell, the pain and suffering there. I felt my anger grow. If this being would not help me, then it should leave. With the last shreds of emotion inside of me I growled out, _"I… have already… __**seen**__ hell!"_

Now it was they who laughed. **_"Very well."_**

And the darkness wrapped around me like a cloak, staining my ruined soul a still darker color as I cried out my one wish, the only thing that I desired at this time. _ Kill them._

**_Yes, my Lord._**


	4. Chapter 3 (cont)

**_Will you once again forsake both gods and men?_**

_I have nothing… to forsake._

**_Do you not remember? Do you not believe?_**

_Remember what… I don't know you…_

**_Even in your new life, it seems that you are foolish._**

_My… new..?_

_"__My lord. My lord." _My eyes were reluctant to open, but after giving a groan of protest, I opened them anyhow to see him beside me, bowing. His smile was different from the ones I was used to, thin and somehow mocking, but it was also sincere. "I took the liberty of washing your body as you slept. I have also provided fresh clothes." He gestured to the garments laid beside me.

Ignoring them for the moment, my eyes instead traced the scene around me. I felt nothing. No, that wasn't quite true. Though I felt no sorrow, nor disgust, there was a faint hint of satisfaction. Now everything was broken.

Just like me.

The demon picked up the white shirt and draped it around my naked shoulders. _"What is your name?"_ My voice emerged hoarse, so I supposed I must have screamed after all, though I didn't remember anything, save for that darkness, and a sudden, searing pain in my right eye. My hand lifted to it slowly as the dark-haired creature answered smoothly,

"Whatever my master desires. I belong to you now."

I lowered the hand and looked at him for a long moment, saying nothing. Once-bright eyes filled with terror passed through my mind. I had watched him every day, waiting, but in that moment that our gaze had met, and he looked at me as though asking for salvation.

There was none, for either of us now.

"Sebastian," I said quietly.

"Quite a mess he's made," the silver-haired man chuckled, touching a long nail to his lips as he gave a narrow smile. "He hasn't lost his touch, the little Count."


	5. Chapter 4

4

"My lord. Are you awake?"

I sat up slowly, looking around the room as I did every day, as though trying to gauge whether it was real. It always seemed unreal at first, but then as I noticed the little imperfections that he always tried to correct, but I told him to leave.

If this was a dream, it would be perfect. The still-fading ache in my right eye, the clothes from last night tossed into the hamper and half-hanging out, the fact that the picture on the wall across from my bed was ever so slightly crooked, all of these things told me that this was reality.

I didn't question where this mansion in the woods had come from. The demon had told me that he could do anything his master required, and I reasoned that this included creating buildings from thin air if need be. Even if that was untrue, I was content with my answer. Or perhaps I was simply afraid of the real one.

"I am," I answered simply.

He made his way inside and bowed, that unnerving smile that was so sincere yet not always on his lips. He wore the same tailcoat he had been wearing since he appeared in front of me. I had asked him once, that first day, why he looked this way, and his answer was only, _I am attached to this form. _

It hadn't taken long for me to realize that asking him questions was not going to get me very far. I had made few orders to him, save for that first; having such a powerful being at my beck and call felt so natural that it made me a bit nervous.

I had told him to take me away from the lab, and to find a place for us to stay. Since then, he had behaved like this. All on his own, without any direction from me, he was acting like my servant, and seeming to thoroughly enjoy it.

Again, I had decided not to question.

Sebastian pulled in the breakfast tray, asking me, "Would you like the biscuit or the scone?"

"The biscuit please." I always asked for the same thing, so why he continued to prepare both was beyond me. I took the soft, sweet bread and began to eat it, looking out the window as he pulled the curtains open, showing a garden that was beautifully groomed despite him being the only one here. Beyond the garden was only woods, hiding us from the world.

This place was terribly old-fashioned, no steel or bright lights, but I didn't mind that. It let me feel like I had been taken to a different time, a different world, where I wasn't grown in a lab and brought up like an animal.

Once he had dressed me- or tried; it seemed to frustrate him slightly when I didn't let him do everything, which was amusing since it was the only time I got to see him make any other expression except for that stupid, knowing smile- I headed downstairs and settled myself in the 'study.'

That was the only problem with everything here. I didn't know what to do with myself. There was no routine, no tests. We were suspended in a bubble outside of the normal world, and that left us drifting. He occasionally tried to tempt me with various activities, but there wasn't much one could do by yourself.

Was I… lonely? I wondered with a bit of a start, sitting up straighter in the lush red chair. That sounded ridiculous, but, even so.

I had grown up surrounded by others like me; even when I didn't play with them we were together. I knew they were only a few feet away. In that large, white room, there had been dozens of us. Now there was just me.

I sighed, resting my chin on my hand.

"Is something the matter, my lord?" Sebastian asked, setting a cup of tea on the table beside me.

"No…" I mused, staring out at the woods. "Nothing."

He looked at me with a contemplative expression, and then nodded, bowing himself out of the room.

He had to be quick about this; the young master would miss him soon. The human was so different this time. Their contract had a different base than before, which made their relationship different. He knew that it was pointless to act otherwise, but it gave him an odd satisfaction to act like a butler again.

He hadn't admitted it until it was gone, but it had been fun. More than tearing flesh or breaking souls, letting himself be ordered about had been immensely entertaining. Having a routine was something humans were obsessed with, and he understood that now.

His counterparts in the other world were likely holding their sides in laughter, he mused as he dashed across the tops of the trees, them barely swaying as he touched down for brief moments before taking to the air again. After all, here he was again, after the same soul he had lost his chance at twice before.

Demons died, the same as any creature, though it was difficult for them to do so. Their souls could leave them, and move on. Yet here was Ciel again, with the same name no less. How that had happened… it could be a coincidence, but he felt the urge to investigate further.

That however, could wait.

He lighted down on the roof of the facility, eyes flickering crimson as he looked through walls of metal and cement, searching. _First, a gardener._

There, in the lowest level. It was amusing that the same experiment he had destroyed once before now had new backers, a new owner. He had kept an eye on them carefully, just in case.

If he created that place again, perhaps things would become as they had been.

It was a thought that betrayed how human he had become, and he realized that as he stole away with the red-haired youth, the number on the back of his neck showing that he was the third of his group. He was the one with the brightest eyes, a green he thought the young master would like, and who had given a hesitant smile at the demon's approach.

Sebastian carried him back to the manor, making sure he slept as he set him in a room in the servant's wing. He should remain so until the rest were there.

Then away he went again, dashing through shadows and moonlight on his mission, only one thought in his mind.

_Now, the maid._


End file.
